Chapter 98 | Screenwriter of a Reviving World

The woman's face flashed past in the darkness.

It was swift and silent, leaving no sound behind.

Just as Zhao Weilai tried to follow it with her eyes, a British player sitting on the other side suddenly bolted upright.

He stared intently out the train window, the color instantly draining from his face.

His lips trembled, but he couldn't squeeze out a single word for the longest time.

“What's wrong? Are you okay?”

Startled by his reaction, a nearby player quickly asked.

The man's gaze remained glued to the window. A raspy, choking sound came from his throat, as if someone were squeezing his neck.

“I saw... a shadow... a bird flying past. No, not a bird. A person. A woman—”

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing, but there was only thick, heavy darkness outside the window. There was nothing.

Yet, no one took his words as a joke.

Lying meant death.

The fact that the man was still standing there in one piece meant he wasn't joking.

“I didn't see it wrong!”

Misinterpreting their silence, the player turned around, his eyes wide with terror.

“I've studied Celtic mythology. I couldn't have mistaken it. That thing... is a Banshee.

Legend says she brings a portent of death, appearing on the roofs of buildings where someone is about to die.”

What did this mean?

Someone was going to die tonight.

Who would it be?

You? Him? Or... me?

The atmosphere in the carriage grew even more suffocating, the air thick enough to stifle breathing.

Everyone's eyes darted around, scanning their companions' faces as if trying to spot some omen of impending death.

Zhao Weilai's heart pounded frantically. She realized the anomaly of the second night had arrived.

A faint, rustling sound seemed to echo in her ears.

It was as if someone had leaned close to her ear and was whispering. It was a faint, buzzy murmur—indistinct, yet enough to make her eardrums itch.

Zhao Weilai took a deep breath and turned her head.

But there was only Weng Yang and Mu Xiao beside her, both warily scanning their surroundings. No one was near her.

She reached up to touch her ear, but felt nothing.

Yet, the sensation of being watched and the faint whispering in her ears only grew clearer.

“What is it?”

Noticing Zhao Weilai's movement, Weng Yang asked in a low, concerned whisper. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she caught a glimpse of a colorful shadow darting past her feet.

The thing moved incredibly fast, vanishing beneath a seat in the blink of an eye.

It almost made her wonder if her eyes were playing tricks on her.

“It's nothing.” Zhao Weilai pursed her lips, clutching the Pig-Slaying Knife tightly to her chest, silently praying for the night to pass quickly.

As time ticked away, the shadow of the Banshee appeared with increasing frequency.

No one spoke in the carriage. There were only muffled coughs and heavy breathing. Under the dim, overhead lights, everyone's face was half-shrouded in shadow, obscuring their expressions.

Bloodshot eyes remained wide open; no one could sleep.

“Tap, tap, tap.”

The tapping on the window glass grew more frequent, like a polite visitor standing outside, repeatedly asking for permission to enter.

Most of the players chose to close their eyes, refusing to think, refusing to look.

A thin layer of condensation coated the glass, beyond which lay a darkness so thick it seemed solid.

Then came a faint weeping sound, as if traveling from a great distance, seeping through the glass from some unknown place.

The already taut atmosphere was instantly stretched to its absolute limit by the sound.

“Ah—! I hear it! I hear it! She saw me! She saw me, and she's coming to take me away!”

A player sitting by the window suddenly let out a shrill scream, tumbling and scrambling off their seat.

She scrambled backward on all fours, her face deathly pale, her entire body shaking like a leaf.

It was a woman's face.

Her skin was a deathly grayish-blue, her eyes large and round, her nose sharp and hooked. The feather-like patterns on both sides of her face were clearly visible.

She was pressed flat against the glass, her nose squashed as she stared straight through the window at the people inside the carriage.

She was too close.

So close that the nearby players could see every single tiny hair on her face and the dim yellow light reflected in her eyes.

“What is that! What the hell is that!”

“A ghost! It's a ghost!”

“Fuck! Dammit! A Banshee! It's a Banshee!”

Screams and curses mingled together as all the players instinctively crowded toward the veteran players.

Zhao Weilai gripped her Pig-Slaying Knife, stepped forward to shield Weng Yang and Mu Xiao, and glared defiantly at the face on the window.

Fortunately, the face only lingered for a second.

In the next instant, it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

Nothing was left on the glass but a layer of condensation.

“What does she want?! Damn it! Fuck!”

“It's gone...?”

“I saw it! I saw it just now! That face looked like an owl's.”

“I saw it too! It was a woman! A woman's face! It's a Banshee. She's here to foretell death. Someone is going to die tonight!”

The carriage fell into a chaotic clamor. Everyone was talking at once, their voices laced with uncontrollable terror.

Just as Zhao Weilai was about to try and calm the players down, Weng Yang hissed beside her, “Look at the floor! There's something there!”

Zhao Weilai immediately looked down.

There, on the floor of the aisle, a tiny, dark shadow was scurrying past at an incredible speed.

The shadow was only about the size of a palm, with the outline of a tiny human—complete with a head and limbs—running incredibly fast.

It slipped out from under a seat, dashed across the floor, and vanished into the shadows at the far end of the carriage.

And it wasn't the only one.

Right after, a second, a third... countless tiny shadows emerged from under the seats, the cracks in the floorboards, and the corners of the carriage.

Like a swarm of startled rats, they scurried across the floor and disappeared into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

“What was that?!”

“Rats? No! That shape looked human!”

“It's too small... How can there be humans that tiny?”

“What the hell is that?! Stay away!”

Cries of alarm erupted one after another, the panic in the carriage growing heavier by the second.

Many players curled up in their seats, clutching their heads and muttering incoherently, their voices trembling so much they were barely audible.

“Quiet! Everyone, quiet!”

Margaret stood up, her voice carrying a strange, soothing warmth:

“All of this is a trial sent by the Lord. We should accept it and praise Him.”

Her words calmed the chaotic crowd slightly, but the terror remained.

Everyone's eyes kept darting between the windows and the floor, terrified that something would burst through the glass in the next second.

Someone walked over to the player who had screamed first and whispered, “You said you recognized that thing? Does a Banshee's appearance always mean someone is going to die?”

Instantly, everyone's gaze locked onto that player.

“A Banshee?”

Someone repeated the word, their face blank with confusion.

However, the few players from Great Britain turned equally pale the moment they heard the name.

“The Banshee is a female spirit from Celtic mythology... She is a messenger of death. Wherever someone is about to die, she will appear.

She wails for the doomed, and those who hear her cry are marked for certain death...”

“In the legends, she has the body of a woman and wears a gray cloak... She taps on windows and flies over roofs. Wherever she appears, someone will definitely die... without fail...”

The player's voice wasn't loud, but it sent shockwaves through the carriage.

Fear spread like a plague, rapidly sweeping through the carriage.

The dim yellow light fell upon everyone's faces, casting their terror, suspicion, and despair into sharp relief.

They eyed one another with deep suspicion. Who was the Banshee here for? Who would be the one to die?

...

Zhao Weilai frowned and looked at Weng Yang. “What do you think?”

“Hard to say. We're in Great Britain right now, so it makes sense that British monsters would show up.”

Weng Yang kept her hand resting on her gun. She shook her head.

“After all, anything is possible in an Instance.”

—If lying could literally make your head explode, then a Banshee foretelling death was hardly out of the question.

Beside them, Mu Xiao lowered her voice and added:

“The Banshee is a very classic death spirit in Celtic mythology. She really does foretell death. Legend has it that her wailing is the declaration of death itself.”

“Regardless of whether she actually kills anyone,”

the Orthodox priest beside them said with a grim expression, “the biggest problem right now isn't the Banshee, but the people. Ladies, we have a problem.”

Everyone else instantly understood his meaning.

The players were already being pushed to their absolute limits. Their frayed nerves could snap at any moment.

And when pushed to the brink of extreme terror, humans were capable of anything.

On the other side of the carriage, the plump Margaret was holding a player's hand, her voice gentle:

“My child, do not be afraid. The Lord foresaw all of this. He has ordained everything. Someone is destined to die tonight, and so He sent the Banshee... This is fate.”